


you were always on my mind

by GaladrielFinwe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: AU from the end of "The Bells", Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Slow Burn, Spoilers for 8x04 and 8x05, The Valonqar prophecy is actually fulfilled here, The show is a disaster, season 8? what season 8?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-03-04 21:37:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18821227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaladrielFinwe/pseuds/GaladrielFinwe
Summary: A fix-it fic to save Jaime Lannister from the character and arc destroying nonsense that was S8X05, "The Bells".Jaime goes to find Cersei in the Red Keep, and re-evaluates his decision making. Meanwhile Brienne soldiers on in the North, and tries not to think about the stupidest Lannister. Much.





	1. Breaking The Chain

She came towards Jaime through a fog of dust, her gait unsteady, eyes wide as if she could not believe his presence was real. Cersei clung to him, burying her face in his shoulder, and he could almost pretend this was one of the many days she’d desperately sought comfort from him, after Robert had been particularly brutal in bed. Her face fell and an alarmed look replaced the expression of joy and she took in the fact he was wounded.

"You're hurt."

It was an improvement on her reaction the last time he'd returned to her injured, he mused as Cersei touched the areas where Euron’s blade had pierced him. Then, she'd rounded on him, castigating him for his tardiness in returning from being a prisoner of the Starks as if he were some green squire boy late to his duties. Now she was vulnerable and afraid, she was as pliable and soft as Tommen's kittens had been. It had ever been so, whereas Cersei the lioness, confident in her power, the Cersei that truly held him in thrall, had sought to wound him, figuratively and literally.

Jaime cupped her face, wondering how, or if he should reassure her, perhaps responding as cruelly as she would have done once. _You asked Bronn to do far worse. Your pretentious pirate lover could no more best me in battle than he could best me in bed_. But thoughts of hurting her faded as he looked into her eyes. The tears pouring down her cheeks blurred her face for him, until all he could see was the visage of another woman crying in front of him, for him...not for herself, as Cersei was. A woman who'd deserved better...and gotten worse from him.

"It’s nothing, it's all right. Come, this way," he urged, resorting, as he always did, to some form of action as a distraction from what he'd rather not think about, as he guided Cersei along the underground chamber towards the passage he'd used to enter the castle. He could feel the vibrations of the dragon's assault in the floor, hear the cracks of stone in the rapidly weakening vaulted ceiling.

"I want our baby to live," Cersei choked out brokenly, stumbling along. "I want our baby to live. Don't let me die, Jaime, please..."

What was it he'd said to Tyrion? " _Cersei always said I was the stupidest Lannister._ " Well, that was the one thing she hadn't been wrong about, Jaime thought bitterly, wincing at the increasing pain from his wounds as he shuffled forward as fast as his body would allow. Nothing other than imbecility could have driven him to this, to be with Cersei, believing she deserved comfort and companionship in what could have been her last moments, knowing full well she would never have done the same for him. What was it that was broken in him, that he'd been willing to leave and hurt Brienne - sweet, gentle Brienne, he thought with a painful pang in his chest that had nothing to do with the wounds inflicted by Euron - whose faith and happiness he had brutally snuffed out, for a woman who only cared about herself?

 _Don't let me die_. Don't let _me_ die.

Jaime had believed for so long that his and Cersei's destinies were inextricably bound, that just as they had come into the world together, they would leave it together. Was that not the true reason he had come here - to die with her, to fulfil that destiny, to wash away both their sins and the blood-soaked path their love had cut through Westeros in a cleansing hail of dragonfire? Yet here she was, desperately clinging to life...and making it clear there was ultimately no room for him in her destiny.

As he and Cersei rounded the corner to where the passage lay ahead, he could see it was already half-blocked and perilous. Rocks and broken masonry were swiftly piling up and were it not their only remaining chance for survival, he would have called attempting to walk through it a fool's gamble. But then what was he, if not a fool?

* * *

 

“If you’d wanted our baby to live so badly,” he said through gritted teeth, as he and Cersei clambered over mounds of rubble, “then maybe you shouldn't have needlessly provoked the Targaryen girl.”

Cersei avoided his gaze. “I…I truly didn't think she'd go that far. Idealists who delude themselves into pretensions of being a saviour don’t harm the people they’re claiming to save.”

“Oh, don’t lie. You goaded her to it. You killed that woman who served her, for no other reason than to provoke her into doing exactly what she did. You thought your new…paramour – “- he spat out the word “– would be able to repeat his lucky feat.”

Cersei laughed, and the sound was a jagged knife up Jaime’s spine. “Don’t tell me you’re jealous? Not when you apparently found a bedwarmer of your own during our parting, sweetling.” Jaime stiffened. “Oh yes, I heard. Did you truly think I wouldn’t find out about you and your living tree trunk? Did her freakishness remind you of Tyrion, persuade you to bestow a little – “she paused, a bitter smile on her lips, “- _pity_ upon her?”

“Shut up,” snarled Jaime, grabbing her upper arm. “Say one more word about her and I will -”

“You’ll what?” said Cersei softly. “You're here with me, aren’t you? Why would I care what you think of her when you’ve clearly made your choice and I won?” She traced her fingers through his beard and up his cheek, slowly stroking his face. “Poor little...or rather, poor lunkish thing. I would have liked to have seen her face when you left her, to see if misery could make it uglier still – “

Jaime pushed Cersei against the tunnel wall violently, a virulent and appallingly familiar combination of rage and self-loathing rising in his chest.

I’m nothing like this, I’ve never been this maliciously, deliberately cruel, he told himself. Lied to himself. Yes, you are, a little voice replied. You once thought the same cruel things about her appearance, called her a dour-faced plank, mocked her feelings for someone who’d raised her to a position her talents merited...

But I don’t any longer, he thought. I’m not that person anymore. I have changed. I'm not like Cersei. Brienne was right...and she deserves to know it. Even if she can’t forgive me for leaving her the way I did.

He let Cersei go, regarding her with contempt. “When we get to the beach, there'll be a ship waiting to take you to Pentos. You'll be able to live there in safety, away from your enemies here.”

Cersei looked at him, her lips curling. “And who was so kind as to arrange that? Little brother Tyrion, who sent Myrcella to her death by boat? You’ll have to forgive me for not hastening to take up his offer.”

“You're lucky to be alive as it is,” snapped Jaime. “You would undoubtedly be dead, due to your own foolish pride, if I hadn’t found my way in to lead you out.”

"Are you expecting me to fall to my knees in gratitude? I couldn’t help noticing,” Cersei's cat-like green eyes had narrowed with suspicion, “that you mentioned it would take me to safety. Not us. Me. Is there something you’re not telling me, dear brother?”

Jaime took a deep breath. “I’ve done more than I should have done for you already. I’ve hurt and endangered other people I love to save you, because I thought we deserved each other. But you’ve made me see that’s not true, so for that,” he smiled tightly, “you have my sincere thanks, dear sister.”

Cersei’s eyes flashed and she walked up to him until her face was barely 2 inches from his. “No. No, no, no,” she hissed furiously, “I may have lost everything I've fought my entire life to have to a girl with dragons, but I will not lose to some flat-faced sow on its hind legs.”

“What you want no longer matters, Cersei,” Jaime said flatly, endeavouring to keep the anger out oj his voice, and failing. “Whatever hold you had on me is done.”

"Oh, you think so, do you?” whispered Cersei, and lunged at him. Jaime doubled up, and grunted in pain as her fingers twisted in the wound on his right side and gripped it. “You have a choice, my love. You can stay with me, be loyal only to me, as you were always meant to, or I will finish what that idiot Bronn evidently could not. I'm not willing to allow you to entertain split loyalties anymore.”

At that moment, a block of stone fell from the increasingly unstable roof, giving Jaime the distraction he needed to throw Cersei off and away from him and alerting him to the continuing precariousness of the situation. “No,” he gasped, holding his hand to the wound, which was bleeding afresh.

Cersei rose from where Jaime’s push had left her. “You can send me away on a ship all you like, Jaime, but I can still reach across the sea and take that ox in woman’s form away from you. If you care for her so much, you’ll do as I say, and stay with me!”

Jaime flinched at his sister’s unwitting echo of the same words Brienne had uttered in a desperate, emotional plea that had lacerated his heart. _Stay_ _here_. _Stay with me. Please_. He remembered the unspeakable things he’d bitterly listed for Brienne as what he’d been willing to do for Cersei, the hateful, the cruel… the threat. He’d pushed a boy out of a window, crippled him for life to save the woman he’d loved then from mortal danger. His throat tightened as he realised what he would now have to do to keep the woman he knew he loved now safe. Would there ever come a time where he wasn’t presented with a choice of evils?

He braced himself, and Cersei gave a shriek as he threw her to the floor, and she fought in vain to work herself free. Pinning her down with his body weight, he pressed his hand and his golden limb down hard on her throat. Cersei thrashed, her body fighting for life, even as it was slowly, agonisingly squeezed out of her. Her mouth gaped, flapping like a fish’s; her face began to turn purple amidst choked, incoherent  pleas for him to stop, as she struggled for air that was running up against the cold, fatal solidity of Jaime's golden hand; her nails clawed at him in a desperate attempt to avert the inevitable; and then, it was over, her hands and head dropping into abrupt stillness.

Jaime slumped down, tears trickling into his beard, cradling Cersei’s limp head in his arms, his hand feeling for where the baby, the last part of him and Cersei that would ever exist, that would now never come into being, had been growing and finding a small bump. Tyrion and I grow more alike day by day, he thought bleakly. Both kinslayers, and love-slayers. Why, we could almost be twins.


	2. A Source Of Comfort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne's trying the good old "bury yourself in work" approach to forget about Jaime. Sansa's a perceptive sweetheart and decides some girl talk is in order, and Brienne opens up a little to her liege lady.

Thrust. Parry. Swords clanging. Yelling.

On any other occasion, putting everything she’d learned to use training young bloods would have delighted Ser Brienne of Tarth, as it had that time Arya Stark had caught her by surprise with her skill, speed and dexterity. Now, it had become the physical equivalent of drinking oneself into oblivion; the exertion, the concentration needed, the activity serving as a means to forget. It wasn’t entirely successful, as even her rationale recalled what…he…had once said about feeling most alive while fighting. In her case, she simply wanted to not feel at all. As evening approached, she’d sheathed her sword and walked back toward the great hall, but not before noticing that Sansa Stark appeared to be watching her closely from Winterfell’s inner ramparts. 

Later that night, despite her best efforts, Brienne was so lost in her longing for and thoughts of Jaime that the knock on her door caused her to jump up in shock. A surge of irrational, wild hope rose in her chest, and she prayed it might be him. No other person had ever come to her chambers. She knew she was but fooling herself, but…

She opened the door, and surprise warred with the disappointment she’d brought on herself at the sight of her liege lady, Sansa Stark.

“My lady? Is aught amiss? Is there some danger that…?”

“No, I simply couldn’t sleep either,” said Sansa, smiling, and Brienne saw that she was bearing a flagon and two cups. “And I thought you might be in need of some company. You hide it well, but I’m more observant than most and can see how unhappy you are.” She placed the flagon and cups on a wooden nightstand and sat down on the bed, motioning to Brienne to join her, and examined her knight’s wan, strained features as she did. “You’ve served me and my family well, Brienne of Tarth. Let me help you now.”

“I’m not sure you can, my lady. What ails me is beyond your power to control, and I don’t think you’d like the solution. You didn’t like him, after all.” 

“No, I can’t pretend I did like him,” said Sansa calmly. “And I must say I like him even less now.”

It was a measure of how much she still loved Jaime that despite everything, Brienne reflexively felt the need to defend him to Sansa, on the very subject that made her seethe with hurt and anger. “He was going to stay. He intended to stay, you know he did, my lady.” She fought and lost the battle to keep her voice steady, as she told Sansa what had transpired between them the night he left. “I know he could not just set aside everything he feels for his sister, that it would always be a part of him given everything that’s happened between them. I just don’t know why he suddenly felt he had to leave.” she said, feeling tears threatening to fall from the corners of her eyes. 

Sansa lowered her gaze; a strange look of what Brienne might have thought was guilt was hovering in her eyes. 

“I understand more than you know, Ser Brienne,” murmured Sansa, with that same oddly rueful expression on her face. Brienne could not help but flinch a little at the knightly address, so longed for, so bittersweet now. “It’s not easy to watch a man you know to be decent and honourable stubbornly refuse to abandon someone who is anything but, to keep believing that there’s a kernel of good in among the rottenness than can be saved.” She gave Brienne a sidelong glance. “Who would have thought that caring about a Lannister would be harder on us than hating them?.” 

Brienne spluttered.

“My lady, I…” But of course, Sansa had guessed. Brienne remembered the knowing look Sansa had given her as Tyrion had announced that Jaime had decided to stay – she briefly closed her eyes, willing away the pain that memory now engendered, the memory of happiness all too fleetingly gained and then lost. Then it hit her that Sansa had just admitted that she too, had feelings for an infuriatingly stubborn Lannister man. “Lord Tyrion? It’s not my place to ask, my lady, but did he not marry you against your will? How could you not resent him for that?” 

“Tyrion had no more choice in the matter than I did, and as I have told the Dragon Queen, and many other people, Tyrion was never anything but kind to me. He protected me from Joffrey even before we were wed and would not so much as share my bed until I wanted him to.”

Brienne snorted. “Some would call that basic decency, what ought to be expected of a man wed to a child.” 

“Yes,” said Sansa thoughtfully, “but most men, backed up by our laws, would have simply seen it as their right to have me, and their lust for Winterfell and the North would have overridden any scruples. We must value doing the right thing whenever it is done, and no matter how small an effort it should be, for that is the only way the world itself will change for the better. Tyrion understands that. That night of the battle…” Sansa’s eyes misted over, and a faraway look appeared in them. “He was so determined to fight those things. Even though he’s physically disadvantaged and would have just risked being killed straightaway. And he sought to comfort me when it looked like we might die fighting…when the wights burst into the crypts and I raised my dragonglass dagger, he held my hand, kissed it, and smiled at me.” 

“If only…” Brienne’s throat tightened. “if only Jaime understood that. That the good he’d done – saving me, helping us fight the dead, counted for something, and he wasn’t damned because of what he’d done for his sister.” The image of the haunted, bitter look on his face as he’d recited a litany of crimes, both committed and uncommitted for Cersei’s sake, as if his past was a creature from a swamp that would forever reach up to wherever he’d managed to climb and drag him back down, had burned itself into her mind. As much as it hurt her that he thought of himself that way, and that her vouching for him and faith in who he was apparently meant nothing to him, the alternative – that their time together had only served to remind him that he loved Cersei – was too agonising to contemplate, let alone bear. 

Sansa placed a hand on Brienne’s shoulder. “If it’s any comfort,” she said softly, “you still made him believe in a greater cause and want to fight for it, for you. No matter what path he ultimately ended up choosing, you did inspire him to do good. You had as much an impact on his life as Cersei ever did.” 

Brienne wiped her eyes.

“Jaime at least has the excuse of having loved and been loved by his sister.” Sansa sighed in frustration. “I can’t pretend to understand why Tyrion gave Cersei the benefit of the doubt, not when she’s always hated him and tried to have him executed. But then,” she smiled, “I was blessed to belong to a normal, loving family, even if some of us did get on each other’s nerves. Perhaps Tyrion still longs for what he never had. I just wish he realised there are other ways he could have it.” 

“You don’t think he’s actually…in league with her?” asked Brienne and wished she hadn’t, considering where she knew Jaime was headed. 

“Oh no,” Sansa said quickly. “No, that’s not Tyrion. He’s not duplicitous in that way. I do believe he’s completely loyal to Daenerys…unfortunately.” Brienne looked startled. “You…still dislike her, my lady.”

Sansa rose from the bed and walked over to the nightstand. “I know Jon thinks I’m being ridiculous and ungrateful, especially after her troops helped us save Winterfell, and Westeros.” She poured wine from the flagon into the two cups, handed one to Brienne, and sipped from her own, grimacing. “Not exactly Arbor Gold, this.” Brienne gave a small laugh. “Mayhap I could have been more welcoming to her when she first arrived. But what I, as a Stark, always took to be the cornerstone of leadership is doing right by your people and putting them first. It’s why I ensured mine would be fed and succoured during the winter, and this war.” She gazed pensively into her cup, before raising her eyes to Brienne’s face. “Do you know how Daenerys described the War Against The Dead, the outcome of which decided the fate of millions of people, the entire realm she seeks to rule? As Jon’s war.” Sansa’s mouth twisted. “Nothing to do with her. A fight she was merely joining as a favour to a man she loves. She resents and refuses to countenance the idea of the North remaining independent, and yet did not see the fight to save Westeros from total destruction as part of her duty as Queen. If she does not see herself as an actual Protector of the Realm, why should I or anyone else?” 

Brienne had no answer for her. “But my lady, what other choices are there? You surely cannot want Cersei to remain queen?”

“Gods be good, no,” said Sansa, her lips thinned. She drank the rest of her wine and placed the cup back down. “But I do not want someone who sees queenship as an entitlement, worship as her just due, and the power to obliterate anyone at will as queen either. And there may be more choices than you think,” she added with a mysterious smile that Brienne puzzled over.  
Sansa walked to the chamber door, patting Brienne on the shoulder as she went. “Goodnight Ser Brienne. I hope I have at least been of some comfort to you?” 

“Yes…yes, thank you, Lady Sansa,” was all a bewildered Brienne could get out before Sansa left her chambers, closing the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for the lovely comments so far! 
> 
> As you can tell from this chapter there will be hints of my other favourite pairing, Sansa/Tyrion, although I'm not sure at this point how much they'll be involved given this is mainly a Jaime/Brienne story


	3. Miles To Go Before I Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An increasingly weak Jaime has made it to the beach where he was meant to escape with Cersei, sorely in need of rescue.

Jaime had never had any use for the Gods, old or new; they were spectacularly useless beings at best, actively callous bastards at worst. But right now, he on the off chance that one, just one, perhaps even the strange mystic the Stark boy had become (though gods knew he didn’t deserve any favours from him) with his ability to see through time and distance was listening, he prayed, and not truly for himself.

_I cannot die leaving Brienne to believe the worst of me, her faith and heart broken. Allow me to live long enough to repair them, and you can do as you please with me then._

He was going to bleed out altogether on the beach he’d managed to stagger to and collapse on if he didn’t get a maester’s attention soon though, and right now, it didn’t seem like there were likely to be any left in the smoking ruins of King’s Landing, where the fruits of the one unambiguously good deed in his life had now been destroyed along with the city. The thousands he’d saved from Aerys’ wildfire hadn’t been saved at all; he’d merely bought time for them to perish in dragonfire at the hands of Aerys’ daughter…who he had just voluntarily fought for. The cynical side of Jaime noted the dark irony of the situation with the detached, grim amusement that had served as his shield for so long. But most of him could, for the first time, comprehend his father’s obsession with legacy. He felt as if part of himself had been wiped out along with the people Daenerys Stormborn had incinerated.

As he slid into unconsciousness, he thought he heard his name being called.

* * *

Tyrion knew the likelihood of his brother’s survival was remote, if not impossible. But he still rode to the meeting point for the dinghy he’d arranged to transport Jaime and Cersei away from the Seven Kingdoms, accompanied only by Davos; the only man who'd been in on this gods-damned foolish plan of his, the only man he knew would help and not betray him to Daenerys; the look in the smuggler's eyes in the aftermath of the slaughter mirrored his own feelings of horror and shame. He could not bring himself to give up on the one person who’d been an emotional anchor for him his entire life, especially now, when his guilt was crippling and the utopia he thought he’d been helping to build had revealed itself to be hell. He’d enabled enough death and destruction for a lifetime today; he could only desperately hope that his act of freeing Jaime had not led to his death as well.

_Everyone’s always asking me to believe in things, family, gods, kings, myself. It was often tempting, until I saw where belief got people._

Where it had got Varys, the unsatisfied idealist with a million causes, the second to last of which had killed him…thanks to Tyrion. Who’d once again made the wrong choice, as he seemed to have done at every single turn of late.

Where it had got Jon, who’d refused to hear anything against his aunt and lover, and steadfastly stood behind her claim to the throne and rejected his own. He’d believed in her; today he’d witnessed her and her men committing slaughter on a horrifying scale, a red mist that had spread to his own men, who he’d had to stop from raping women…the ones it had been within his power to stop, anyway.

Where it had got Daenerys herself. Her belief had been the most dangerous of all, a belief in destiny, destiny thwarted for too long, which had turned her from the beloved saviour figure of Essos to the fiery counterpart of the Night King in Westeros.

Sansa had known; Sansa, who as a young girl had once been the most innocent and willing to believe of all of them, until life threw horrors at her that ensured neither of those traits had survived. Tyrion wished he could tell her how right she’d been…and that his loyalties were no longer a problem. Had that truly been her only objection to them…no, it was better not to think about what ifs. They would all be rendered moot by the likelihood of him being burned to death for releasing Jaime and given his poor decisions had led them all to this, the immolation of King’s Landing, Tyrion felt it was only justice.

As he reined in his horse by the water’s edge, his stomach gave a horrible lurch…the dinghy was still there. And then suddenly he saw a crumpled form half a mile away from where it was docked – even from this distance, he could recognise his brother. “Jaime!” he shouted, and galloped over to where Jaime lay bleeding and…oh no, no, no, not dead, please not dead. Requesting help to dismount from Davos, Tyrion hurried to his brother and leaned over him, and found to his immense relief that he was still breathing. “Get a maester here, immediately," and as Davos hastily sought help, he tore strips off his own shirt to serve as temporary bindings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if Jaime can survive that long after the fight with Euron with those wounds in the show he can survive a bit longer here too.


	4. Ice After Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> News of Daenerys' rampage reaches the North, and Sansa feels the weight of guilt on her shoulders.

When the news of the destruction of King’s Landing reached Winterfell, its ruler was rocked to her core. Sansa’s hands shook as she read the letter from Tyrion aloud, her words reverberating in a horrified silence. When she had seen the seal bearing the lion sigil of House Lannister, she had taken care to ensure no one was in the room save for Bran and Brienne, the only people remaining in Winterfell she felt she could trust entirely, when she read it. Bran, as was sadly usual these days, showed little emotion, but Brienne looked like she was on the edge of vomiting.

As her eyes hovered over the final lines, Sansa gave Brienne a weak smile. “There is at least some good news for you amidst all this horror, Ser Brienne. Tyrion has also sent word that his brother lives; although gravely injured. He and Ser Davos have managed to get him to safety under the care of a healer.”

For a brief moment, the room around Brienne dissolved, her and she felt as if she were floating numbly, suspended in an otherworldly place, unable to take anything in apart from a sense of overwhelming relief cut through with lingering fear.

The moment passed, and a rush of molten lava broke the dam of her numbness, as her heart filled to bursting with red-hot anger.

 _You stupid, stupid idiot_ , she thought, shaking so badly she had to sit down. _You could have died, exactly as I warned you_ , _and why I begged you not to go._

She tried to pull herself together for Sansa’s sake; self-indulgence was unworthy of a knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and she would not give into it longer than this.

“What of your brother Lord Jon, my lady? He was not caught up in the sack of the city?”

Sansa turned away, to hide the tears threatening to fall. “Oh, he survived the fighting, but he may not survive for much longer, and it will be my doing. As -” she shuddered – “this very well may have been.”

Brienne frowned. “None of this is your fault, my lady; if cold courtesy were enough to drive her to murder thousands, truly the Targaryen madness has come forth with a vengeance.”

“Nay, you do not understand, I did more than simply being less than warm towards her.” Sansa took a deep breath, and continued. “Jon is not my brother. He is the son of my aunt Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, and is the true heir to the Iron Throne. His claim is superior to Daenerys’, and…I told Tyrion in the hope it would turn him and others away from her, that it would undermine her. And I fear it has worked only too well.”

Brienne was stunned.

“My- my lady, if what you say be true, then –“

“Jon’s not safe, don’t you see? She knows, Daenerys knows others know about his parentage, what if she decides he’s a threat? And Arya’s down there as well…” Sansa paced back and forth in agitation, trying to rein in the waves of panic and horror rising inside her. She was the Lady of Winterfell, she could not be seen to be falling apart. “I didn’t trust her. I thought she would make a bad queen. But I didn’t think...she was capable of this. If she can burn an entire city of powerless innocents, what might she do to someone who has the love of his people and who has a better claim than her? I must go south, prostrate myself before her if need be, to assure her we will support her and only her as ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, to keep Jon safe.”

“Lady Sansa, no!” said Brienne quickly. “What will that accomplish other than putting yourself in mortal danger?” She knelt by Sansa’s side, and looked imploringly into her face. “My lady, I understand, believe me I do…I hate this too, the not knowing, the fear for...” she hesitated, “…people we care about, but going to King’s Landing is death. I tried to warn Jaime, he would not listen…please do not make the same mistake. If she knows you revealed Lord Jon’s secret your life would not be worth a fig in her presence. It would be better to stay here and wait.”

“Wait for her to burn all of the North?” Sansa said bitterly. “She’s well aware we liked her not, and most of Westeros views Northerners as barely above barbarians. It would not take much for her to decide we should serve as an example too. And I have – I have put Tyrion and Jon and so many others in danger with the information I gave them. I owe it to them to save them if I can.”

They both jumped as Bran’s emotionless voice rose out from the corner of the room. “I think you should go. I can keep watch over the North.”

Sansa approached him and asked urgently, “Does this mean it will end well? Will I succeed in heading off worse for everyone?”

“If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen,” answered Bran, and with that Sansa had to be content. She turned to her loyal knight, who had been by her side through a good many trials now. “Will you come with me, Brienne?” Sansa’s face was pale as the snow that blanketed the ground, but her mouth was set in a line of grim determination.

“My lady, I am in your service, you need not ask me to remain by your side.” responded Brienne, trying to smile to hide the fear and despair she felt at once again being unable to turn someone dear to her away from the path of fatal folly. But…there was now also a chance she might see Jaime again, to give him the hard smack with his own golden hand that he so deserved…when he had recovered. _If he recovered,_ she corrected herself, her stomach lurching.

They set out the next day, riding to Eastwatch where they would take ship for King’s Landing, or what was left of it. _I’m a stupid little girl who never learns,_ Sansa recalled once saying about herself. Now, she had gone too far in the other direction and been too clever for her own good, and people she loved might once again die because of her.


	5. One Hand, Two Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime hasn't improved as a patient since he lost his hand. Tyrion and Davos, two men from opposite parts of society who were once on opposite sides of a war, bond over the tragic journeys of their respective lieges.

In an area of woodland far enough outside King’s Landing for Tyrion to judge it as being relatively safe, Jaime was recovering in the house of a local woods witch, who had made up several herbal poultices to apply to his wounds, into which she had poured enough wine to make him scream for several minutes, with a cheerful nonchalance that had unnerved Tyrion, who was familiar with tales of the otherworldliness of woods witches. Jaime had not been the best of patients, and Tyrion, having risked a great deal on his brother’s behalf recently, no longer had the best of patience.

“Why did you bring me to this godsforsaken hovel again, brother?” Jaime groaned, head falling back against the pallet he currently lay on. “This woman’s ‘cures’ are like to be worse than the alternative.”

“I’ve never known a man with so much to be grateful for complain so bloody much about things which are entirely his own fault. You nearly died going after Cersei, instead you’re alive. You could,” Tyrion said pointedly, glaring at him, “have stayed in Winterfell with the woman who actually did love you, and not be suffering any of this at all.”

Jaime grimaced as he sat up, clutching his chest. “Don’t remind me. Besides, you were the one who released me to try and save Cersei, so you’re not exactly free of blame here either, Tyrion.”

Tyrion arched an eyebrow, sipping water from a wooden cup. “Ah yes, whenever something bad happens to a Lannister I’m bound to be to blame somehow. Maybe you’re more like our father than I thought.”

“You’re supposed to be the smartest Lannister. You should have smacked me on the head, told me I was being stupid, and sent me back North. Which I still fucking hate, by the way.”

Tyrion laughed. “Taking that approach with you sounds rather more like Cersei than me.” At the mention of their sister’s name, the levity drained from his face. “I assume Cersei didn’t make it?”

“I know she didn’t make it.” Jaime said bitterly. “I wound up killing her.” Tyrion’s jaw dropped, and all he could do was stare, open-mouthed, at his brother. “You…you did what?”

“You heard me perfectly well, little brother. I’m not repeating myself.”

Tyrion sat down, his head spinning. “I don’t understand. I hated her, you loved her. And yet I tried to save her and you killed her.” He shook his head. “Why?”

Jaime gave a crooked smile. “Why, she made fun of my hand. Such a grievous insult must have reply, and so it did.”

“Jaime.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he snapped. “Have I ever asked you why you killed our father?”

“No, because you wouldn’t have needed to ask,” said an agitated Tyrion. “You knew, better than anyone, everything he did to me. You knew he wanted me dead and put yourself up to stop it. I always hated him, it’s no mystery why that crossbow bolt found its way into his belly. But you…as I told you in Winterfell, you knew what Cersei was and loved her anyway. What would drive you to kill her now?”

“Seven hells, I said I don’t want to talk about it!” Jaime shouted, and promptly winced in pain as he’d stretched the still healing wounds in his sides once again. “Just…leave me alone.”

“Very well,” Tyrion said stiffly. “I’ll leave you be, since my company is so irksome.”

He went outside, breathing hard to stay calm, and walked over to the clearing in the forest where Davos was keeping watch for any Targaryen soldiers or roving bandits that might come rambling down their neck of the woods, looking for his miserable ingrate of a fellow kinslaying brother. Not that Davos was likely to welcome his presence much more. Although, he had to admit the knight’s willingness to help smuggle, save, and then conceal Jaime was puzzling him. His present mood and frustration at not getting any answers from Jaime finally prompted him to ask the question that had been bothering him for a while.

“Why?” said Tyrion abruptly. “Why have you helped me? I killed your son on the Blackwater. You’re the rare person who would hate me for an entirely justified reason.”

For several moments, Davos said nothing, before slowly turning round to look at Tyrion, who was astonished at the level of both pain and pity he’d suddenly seen in the depths of the Onion Knight’s eyes, all the more surprising in such an ordinarily cheerful and amiable man.

“My son died in battle, Lord Tyrion. I grieve for him, but in war, there’s always the risk of death. And it’s not as if you set out to kill him in particular. But there’s more to it than that.” He paused. “It’s like watching history repeat itself. I was a King’s Hand who tried in vain to stop his king from becoming something terrible, you’ve been doing the same for Queen Daenerys. She was the only person who gave you a chance, who thought you were worth something when no one else did, no?” Tyrion could only nod in agreement. He gave a sad, rueful smile. “So it was with me and Stannis.”

“I confess myself puzzled, Ser Davos,” said Tyrion, frowning. “Being Stannis Baratheon’s polar opposite in pretty much every regard, I can’t pretend I ever liked him when he was at Robert’s court, or even particularly admired him beyond the respect one owes to a dangerous foe. But he never appeared to me to be “something terrible”, unless it was his heavy-handed idea of justice.”

“And there wasn’t. Not until the Red Woman came to Dragonstone.” A shadow crossed Davos’ face, and his eyes darkened. “Aye, she played a big part in us beating the Dead, I’ll acknowledge that, but…she made grievous mistakes before then, Lord Tyrion, and they cost the man at the centre of ‘em everything – his life, his sense of justice, his family.”

“We were marching to Winterfell, and the weather was beyond shit and it was looking to be a mighty struggle just to get there, let alone fight the Boltons. And then one night, a couple dozen Bolton men got into our camp and destroyed a huge amount of our supplies. We were completely fucked.” Davos shook his head. “I could live with it more easily if his stubbornness had only got him killed. It would still hurt like bloody hell, and I’d still feel as if I’d let him down as Hand by not being able to talk him out of dying for nothing. But…the Red Woman had been on about the power of “kingsblood” – Davos drew quotes around the word – “and told him if he’d just sacrifice his little girl, the Princess Shireen, his way to victory would be clear.”

Tyrion’s blood ran cold. “Gods be good…he didn’t…not his own child…?”

Davos looked away, tears glistening in his eyes. “I knew something was wrong when he sent me to Castle Black to ask for more supplies.” He walked over to a tree stump and sat down heavily on it. “It was a job that any rank and file soldier could’ve done, but he was insistent that I do it. It made me uneasy, and more so when he flatly refused to let me take Shireen out of harm’s way. I had this feeling he wanted me gone for a reason, although it never, never would’ve occurred to me…You see, I’d been able to put him back on the right path when he’d been about to lose his way before, and he knew it, and he knew I loved Shireen as much as he did – “

 “Forgive me, Ser Davos,” interrupted Tyrion bitterly, “but speaking from personal experience, fathers who kill or try to kill their children don’t love them. The act is so heinous…no truly loving father could even contemplate it, unless it were a mercy.”

“No, that’s where you’re wrong,” Davos said sadly. “I’d seen Stannis with her…now, he was an awkward, dour man, I’ll admit. Wasn’t comfortable showing the softer kind of feelings, you know? But he lit up – for him – when she was around him. When she fell ill with greyscale as a baby, he brought in about a hundred Sam Tarlys to cure her. And they did, even though she was left with a scarred face. But that never mattered to him, or me. She was the one person who could put a genuine smile on his face. He was as good a father as he knew how to be, and a good and just man before that – “ - Davos’ face twisted in loathing and anguish– “going for that fucking throne drove him to do things he’d never even have dreamed of doing before.”

He folded his hands in his lap and looked down at them, and sighed. “I all but broke my back and wore out my tongue trying to help Stannis take the throne, not just because he had the right of it, but because I loved him, he’d earned my love and my loyalty, and I believed he’d be the just and good ruler the kingdom and the common people so badly needed.” His voice took on a hint of self-reproach. “I said earlier that I blamed what was going wrong in him on the Red Woman. But what I couldn’t, wouldn’t see was what the anger he felt at being denied his rightful inheritance, his resentment at constantly doing his duty and forever being unrewarded for it, his bitterness that his brothers and the people didn’t love him was doing to him…how it all festered, and the thought of a crown to amend it all…well, it became an obsession, and the end in itself.”

He glanced across at Tyrion with a grim look on his face, one eyebrow raised. “Sound familiar, any of this?”

Tyrion couldn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

_Daenerys too, was a good person. She too, wanted to bring justice to the smallfolk, to break the wheel, to save humanity. Until, despairing of being recognised and loved for what she’d done, she could see nothing but the throne and righting the wrongs done to her and her family, and she herself became a wheel that crushed a city._

What Davos had said, and the reflection of his own doomed tenure as Hand to a fallen monarch, grieved and chilled him. He stood up. “Ser Davos, if I may ask one last favour…would you watch my brother for me? I mean to return to King’s Landing.”

The Onion Knight regarded him dubiously. “You really think you can put a stop to this now? That she’ll listen to you? She must know you set your brother free, you know.” Davos came across and put a hand on Tyrion’s shoulder. “Take it from me, all you’re going to accomplish going back to her after saving someone she had captive behind her back is getting thrown in a cell for treason…or worse.”

Tyrion sighed and looked down at the ground; a mess of twigs, stones and leaves. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t yet know. I must try nonetheless. If it goes ill…well, I have crimes I need to pay for, and if this is how I pay for them, so be it.” He strode over to where their horses were tethered, and looked back over his shoulder. “But first, a hand up for a Hand, if you please, my good man.”

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I thought exploring the parallels between Stannis and Dany would allow Davos to get some much needed emotional resolution and get his feelings off his chest, instead of just pretending he's a happy chappy who exists to ship Jon/Dany.


	6. Chapter 6

Tyrion had lost track of time in the dungeon in which he now resided. He wondered bleakly how many more people Daenerys had decided to slaughter in the meantime, after he’d thrown his Hand’s pin away in revulsion, while feeling forever stained by all the bloodshed she’d unleashed. He could only hope that she still knew nothing of Jaime’s whereabouts. He tensed as the sound of footsteps echoed down the dungeon stairwell. Well, he thought numbly, he'd been given slightly more time between arrest and immolation than poor Varys, who'd been right, and who he'd betrayed in vain. But when no further noise emanated from the passage, his desire to get this over with rather than spend any more time dwelling on the agonising death he was facing drove him to his feet and to demand whoever it was out there make haste. What were they waiting for?

“Come, I know it's time for my sentence to be carried out, don't fear to do the Queen's bidding. I’m but a short man, with plenty of hair and beard for kindling. I should burn fast and well for Her Grace’s pleasure.”

The figure scoffed, before looking around, as if to check no one else was in the dank chamber, and swiftly approached his cell, a jangling noise keeping time with their walk. A familiar voice issued from under the dark hood. “I would rather your legacy went beyond your wit echoing after your death, my lord.”

“Sansa?” whispered a stunned Tyrion. “”What are you doing here?”

“Rescuing you, of course.” Sansa rolled her eyes as she fumbled with the keys to his cell. “Really, Tyrion, judging from the past few months it seems we need to get you far away from the Dragon Queen as soon as possible not just to save your life, but to save your brains.”

Tyrion bit back a laugh. This side of Sansa intrigued him – it called to his own need to mock the ridiculous, to snark to cover up emotional frailty, to not suffer foolishness. Including the foolishness of trying to save him from his self-inflicted fate.

“Listen to me, Sansa,” he said urgently, walking forward and grasping the bars of his cell. “You know what Daenerys has done to a city she believed opposed her obstinately and irrationally. I fear very much she’ll do the same to you if she finds out you are here, trying to help me. You must go, and go now.”

Sansa bent down so she was closer to eye level with him, a kindness she’d always instinctively offered, and he’d appreciated, during those painful, awkward months in King’s Landing. “I think you of all people are aware I’m far from stupid, and know I will have taken this into account. You’re a good man and don’t deserve to die because you care for your family,” Sansa swallowed. “Like my father did.”

“I’m not, Sansa, I’m really not.” He looked at her sadly. “My support of Daenerys…my failures as Hand…are what brought death and destruction to thousands of innocent people. I killed my father. You remember Shae, your handmaiden?” Tyrion braced himself to talk of that which would make Sansa hate him, as he hated himself. “She was my lover. I thought I’d sent her away for her own safety after Varys warned me my family knew about her. Instead she came back to testify at my trial for Joffrey’s murder and helped sentence me to death. I killed her too. I found her in my father’s bed, she came at me and I strangled her.” His voice broke.

Sansa had paled, but her voice remained calm.  “You cannot blame yourself for what Daenerys did, Tyrion. She chose to do that…and it was my actions in telling you about Jon that may have led to…” Her voice trembled. “It also seems to me…what you did was only in response to what had been done to you. Your father deserved what he got. Not just for what he did to so many families that got in his way, including mine, but for what he did to you.”

“That’s not the point Sansa,” Tyrion said gently. “Kinslaying is still considered a monstrous crime and rightly so…and it only made me feel infinitely worse and convinced me that I was the monster he always said I was. And it meant I’d killed both my parents, whether directly or indirectly. My niece was murdered in Dorne…and I sent her there. I know my determination to believe Cersei and to try and reason with her appeared to be and was idiotic. I simply couldn’t bear to be responsible for the death of yet another family member, whatever my sister had done to me…or everyone else.” On the verge of tears, he struggled to control his voice. Tyrion drew a ragged breath, fighting to force words past the lump in his throat. “It’s why I set out to save Jaime, even though I knew I was putting my head in the dragon’s maw. And it’s why I want you to leave me here, and go before you’re discovered and something terrible happens to you, too. I couldn’t protect you as my wife, and the last thing I want is to be the cause of your ruin.”

Tears pricked the corners of Sansa’s eyes, which she tried to blink away before they could fall or he could see them. “Your memory, my lord, is grievously flawed. You protected me from Joffrey both before and after I became your wife – don’t you remember? You saved me from a worse beating and ensured I wouldn’t have to endure a tortuous bedding ceremony at his hands.” She rose and, with a click, she turned the key and the cell door creaked open. “It seems I’ve inherited my share of Stark honour before reason,” she laughed shakily at Tyrion’s wide-eyed expression, longing to run her fingers through his unruly curls. “Jon will never let me hear the end of it, when he finds out.” Tyrion could not help but laugh too, in as much as wonder as amusement. He quirked an eyebrow as Sansa lowered herself back onto her haunches, eyes examining his face.

“I must say, I’m not sure I like the beard,” she said softly.

“It’s the two-toned appearance it gives me with my hair, isn’t it?” quipped Tyrion. “Half blonde and half black; I’d have thought it perfect for the Halfman. Just like we, the misfits of the court, were perfect for each other.”

Sansa felt her face warm and inwardly scolded herself. How, after everything she’d been through, with the new power she’d obtained and wielded as Lady of Winterfell, could she still be blushing like the naïve maid she’d once been?  “Actually, I was thinking it might make it uncomfortable for…anyone who wished to kiss you.”

Tyrion’s heart nearly stopped. He looked at Sansa. "Have you...have you not..."

“I wouldn’t know,” she said, averting her gaze now, “I might have been betrothed or married three times but I’ve…” she hesitated, and briefly closed her eyes, determined to force the horrific memories of her last marriage to remain inside a locked chest in her mind. “…I’ve never been touched or kissed in the way a woman would want to be, or would find pleasing.”

The flash of remembered trauma that crossed her face did not go unnoticed by Tyrion, who fought to stifle the rage he felt rising at what had been done to Sansa. They’d never discussed it in the short moments of conversation they’d shared since they’d met again in Winterfell, but he’d heard tell from others of the torment Ramsay Bolton had inflicted on her. The fate she had dealt him had, in Tyrion’s eyes, still been far too merciful. He could not kill him again for her, so the best he could do was to help her forget, to teach her that men were meant to please women, not hurt them.

“I thought you said it wouldn’t work,” he said huskily, raising his hand to touch one of the red braids falling over her shoulders, as shiny as the purest copper in the torchlight. “That my loyalties would come between us.”

“Given what she’s done and the fact she’s locked you up for treason,” Sansa whispered, leaning closer, towards his face, “I doubt that will be a problem anymore.”

In an almost dreamlike state, Tyrion watched her lips seek out his, the soft, petal-like feel of them contrasting with the firmness with which they were suddenly pressed against his mouth, still quite unable to believe this was happening, that this beautiful, clever, powerful woman who could have any man in Westeros at her feet if she wanted, was kissing him… His eyes dropped closed almost of their own accord; he sought, gently, to open her mouth and invite her to explore his in return. He heard her moan against his mouth as the kiss deepened and the noise sent a jolt of desire through him. The timing, he thought wryly, made much room for improvement.

Belatedly he became aware that the longer they spent...not escaping, the lesser their chances of actually doing so became. He broke the kiss, gasping. "Sansa, we need to go."  Dazed, Sansa shook herself back to where they were - a dank prison cell beneath King's Landing, only unguarded because no one believed a dwarf could escape of his own volition or would have anyone care enough to help him. "Yes," she breathed, standing up and looking around. "Follow me, and keep close," she said, taking his hand in hers, as she led him upwards, towards the light. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay in updating! I'm afraid lack of motivation and writer's block struck, and struck hard. I want to thank everyone who's commented on this story - I'm terrible at responding to comments but rest assured I do read them and they really do make me incredibly happy and grateful that people are enjoying it.

**Author's Note:**

> So, like a lot of people I'm pretty damn angry at how the show chose to conclude Jaime's arc, namely acting as if absolutely none of it happened, and how it ruined his beautiful relationship with Brienne.
> 
> It starts off very angsty for our beloved J/B but it will get better!


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